- The adjective definition of objective on dictionary.com is:being the object or goal of one’s efforts or actions.
- not influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice; based on facts; unbiased: an objective opinion.
- intent upon or dealing with things external to the mind rather than with thoughts or feelings, as a person or a book.
- being the object of perception or thought; belonging to the object of thought rather than to the thinking subject (opposed to subjective).
Subjective is defined as:
- existing in the mind; belonging to the thinking subject rather than to the object of thought (opposed to objective).
- pertaining to or characteristic of an individual; personal; individual: a subjective evaluation.
- placing excessive emphasis on one’s own moods, attitudes, opinions, etc.; unduly egocentric.Philosophy.
- relating to or of the nature of an object as it is known in the mind as distinct from a thing in itself.
- relating to properties or specific conditions of the mind as distinguished from general or universal experience.
- pertaining to the subject or substance in which attributes inhere; essential.
There was a time when I thought that there could be something that was objectively anything, but the more I study and the more I learn and the more I work with clients, the more I see that there’s no such thing as objectivity when it comes to human beings.
Something that is often hard to admit, is that we are all driven by our personal experiences, our upbringing, our understandings and the filters that have been created by our lifetimes. The more unhealed wounds we have, the less objective we are able to be.
I sincerely attempt to love people unconditionally. I know that what greets my eyes is not always what it seems to be, yet today, I found myself in a position I never thought I would find myself in.
When I was a younger mom, I was very dogmatic and very judgmental on my kids. I am not proud of it, but I was doing the very best I could. The last 7 years have taught me much about loving my kids regardless of their actions and realizing that they have their agency and their lives and their choices after a certain point are none of my business.
They were shared with me for a moment to help them to create a foundation for their life experience. I have done the best I could. There are so many places I messed up… I think we all have, but in that I know that that is a subjective analysis. In the end, I believe that we co-create our realities and everything is perfectly imperfectly creating the exact life we need for the lessons we came to learn.
Today, my daughter asked me if she could do something for her birthday. While I would like to say that it doesn’t matter, I find myself torn because I know that people judge people. As her mother, I want to protect her, and I can’t. As her mother, though, I also want her to be able to make her own choices and I want her to have the freedom to express herself as she chooses.
Objectively, it is easy to say just do it. Subjectively, however, all my filters, all my experiences, all my prejudices that I didn’t even know I still had are screaming, “NOOOOOO!”
These moments where we feel those subjective screams are beautiful moments to stop and reflect and heal.
There is a difference between judgment and discernment. I hear people justify their judgment saying that it is necessary to judge to survive. I would propose that judgment in most cases is condemnation. Judgment is the very essence of subjectivity. Discernment is a way of deciding if it is the right move for you. This, I would suggest would be as close as we can come to objectivity.
Judgment is done with fear and hatred and anger. Discernment is done with love, compassion and expansion.With judgment, because it is a contracting energy, most of the time, in my experience, rather than finding a solution, it will back the judged into a corner and they will fight for their position. With discernment, you can help to create a solution if the situation isn’t going the way it is desired.
It is great to say that we live life objectively, however, we are fooling ourselves if we think that living life is anything other than a subjective experience.
If the subjective experience you are having is causing you contraction or pain, I have been blessed with the talent and skill to help you to heal those wounds so that you can become more objective.
Reach out to me at april @ liveliferadically . com to schedule a conversation to see if we are a good fit.